


acariciar (to caress)

by leiascully



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Sleeping Together, Sleepy Cuddles, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil can't believe that Carlos is close enough to touch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	acariciar (to caress)

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: post-"First Date"  
> A/N: From the prompt "caress" by venizianostuck on tumblr.  
> Disclaimer: _Welcome to Night Vale_ and all related characters are property of Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor, and Commonplace Books. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

Carlos is even more beautiful when he's sleeping. Cecil hasn't decided yet if that's the time that Carlos is the _most_ beautiful, but it's definitely in the running. Carlos has wonderful sheets with pale blue stripes, crisp and cool as biting into an apple just out of the fridge and not discovering any portion of a creeping horror within, and they look just perfect against Carlos' dark skin. Cecil isn't certain that he believes in snow, but if he did, surely it would look something like this: a rumple of blankness highlighting the glorious shades of the world. He imagines Carlos with snow sifting down onto his perfect hair (with the touches of grey at the temple that are so  dignified and mature). He then imagines Carlos screaming at the touch of the snow, brushing it quickly out of his loose tumbled curls before the snow, like the treacherous barber Telly, damages that crowning glory, and that is less pleasant, so Cecil concentrates on the present moment: this bed, this night, this perfect man asleep beside him.

Carlos sleeps on his stomach, his knee pushed out to the side, so that his back faces Cecil. The moon is full tonight (if it is not a lie), and the light pools in the hollows of Carlos' spine. Cecil shifts his head on the pillow and wonders if he touches Carlos' skin, if it will feel as velvety as it looks with the ghostly light of the false moon slipping across it. He doesn't want to wake Carlos - Carlos who sleeps _so_ sweetly, and breathes so evenly - but Carlos' skin is too perfect to resist, and Cecil has nearly convinced himself he's dreaming anyway. 

He lets his fingers splay gently over the crook of Carlos' shoulder blade, and almost gasps at the touch. Carlos' skin is warm and wonderful and it feels exactly like Cecil imagined (nevermind that he was touching this skin a few hours ago - the night is a new space, and memories change). Carlos sighs, and the sound is so perfectly peaceful that Cecil sighs too, because his happiness is too much to be contained. He slides a careful palm down the planes of Carlos' back, the layers of muscle and the tension of sinew that hold Carlos' perfect bones together. Carlos sighs again in somnolent bliss and Cecil allows himself another stroke, a gentle caress, and then one more - just one, one is enough, he doesn't want to overreach, or to wake Carlos and spoil the moment.

The moonlight fades from the gap between the curtains, as if Cecil has swept the pallid luminescence away with his touch. He really ought to talk to Carlos again about boarding his windows - the holidays are coming, and it's never too early to start planning. But now it's night: a time for sleeping, a time to hold loved ones close and pretend not to hear the scraping noises, and the screeching, and the strange strangled bubbling just outside the window. Cecil turns over and presses his shoulders against Carlos', and he is comforted.


End file.
